choiring

But "The Choiring of the Trees" could have been a much better book.

In that soft choiring of delight What sound hath made thy heart to fear?

Although its hero and heroine are idealized and occasionally sentimentalized, "The Choiring of the Trees" delineates the people of Nail's hometown skillfully.

In places, "The Choiring of the Trees" succeeds in doing this, as in the excellent portrayal of Gov. George W. Hays.

THE CHOIRING OF THE TREES By Donald Harington.

In an acknowledgment in "The Choiring of the Trees," Donald Harington mentions "a biography of a courageous Arkansas woman who sought to rescue an Ozarks mountaineer condemned to the electric chair."

I only wish that the finesse of these details of time and place could better compensate for the structural confusion of "The Choiring of the Trees," so that it could mean as well as entertain.

Nevertheless, I must say that I found William T. Vollmann's review of Donald Harington's novel "The Choiring of the Trees" (May 5) to be the largest chunk of wrongheaded nonsense I have come across since I read the Rev. Jerry Falwell's autobiography.